Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 8

Labour to win, Tories to lose: but why can’t Britain have radical MPs free to speak their minds? | Simon Jenkins

With just one change, we could have more independent voices in the Commons. We are going to need them

For the next two years, the best job in British politics will be leader of the opposition. The first two years is usually the honeymoon period for an opposition party. Keir Starmer, meanwhile – if he is indeed the next prime minister – will be wrestling with an appalling bequest: a cabinet bereft of recent cabinet experience and his vague election promises of “growth”. A deft opponent would be wi...

Message to Labour: don’t tax school fees. Make private schools work for the public good | Simon Jenkins

Finding a balance between privatisation and nationalisation has defied past governments – the party must make this its mission

To tax or not to tax? Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private schools seemed a good idea at the time. Its programme was bereft of leftist clout. The tax would hit privilege at its roots, and bring in a windfall £1.6bn to benefit deprived state schools. What was not to like?

The trouble is that every tax carries unintended consequences. Estimates were that most parents would...

Farage’s Ukraine comments were hardly offensive – other party leaders could use a history lesson | Simon Jenkins

Yes, the Reform leader’s words were opportunistic. But at their root is a call for peace – and that should be on everyone’s minds

Is Nigel Farage guilty as charged? An appeaser, a disgrace, an apologist for Putin, an insult to Ukraine, says a chorus of British party leaders on the election campaign trail. They are clearly delighted to hurl abuse at the surging Reform party, an attack that does not involve spending public money.

What Farage said was that Nato and the EU bore some responsibility for...

Come 5 July, an almighty fight looms. Keir Starmer, take on the countryside at your peril | Simon Jenkins

Britain’s landscape is under threat from developers and rapacious corporations. But I have a solution – if the next PM will listen

What do Britons most love about Britain? At the last count it was still the NHS. After that it was not the royal family, the army or democracy. Believe it or not, it is the countryside, according to polling commissioned last year by Future Countryside, an initiative of the Countryside Alliance. Today, the NHS may cram election manifestos, but of the countryside we hea...

Now we know Farage and Reform’s so-called policies. The worst thing Sunak can do is copy them | Simon Jenkins

Voters will see through the thin prospectus Farage offered today. And pandering to his ideas won’t end well for the Conservatives

Smash him. Go for the jugular. Take the gloves off and hit him with the big one. We have nothing to lose. A sure sign of political panic is when the kids in the backroom take control of tactics and use the language of the big fight.

But who is it that Rishi Sunak is reportedly being advised to smash? The gossip from anonymous “advisers” is that he should get nasty with ...

A Tokyo developer will demolish a building for spoiling the view. Why doesn’t Britain care about beauty? | Simon Jenkins

Politicians and planners are allowing the Thames to become an urban canyon – greed always seems to win out

A Japanese developer has announced it will demolish a new tower of luxury flats in Tokyo it was weeks from completing. The reason? The 10-storey development was blocking beautiful views of Mount Fuji. The idea a developer would reach such a decision in Britain is inconceivable. In London, flats are usually built to make a profit. If they have a beautiful view, good luck to those buying them...

Cut Rishi Sunak some slack – his D-day blunder is hardly the worst thing he’s done | Simon Jenkins

The real problem is how past wars are invoked not only to ramp up today’s defence spending, but to agitate for fresh conflict

Attacks on Rishi Sunak for cutting short his attendance at the D-day commemoration have been overblown. His early return home was a presentational error, but he had attended the relevant British ceremonies and is in the midst of an election campaign. The final day was a giant sound and light show with a photocall mostly for assorted heads of state rather than heads of gove...

I’m a floating voter. Wes Streeting has my attention, but who else has bold, radical ideas? | Simon Jenkins

The country is sick of the Tories. The opposition promises change, but is too terrified to articulate what that might entail

This is the wail of the floating voter. I start every election a deliberate floater. An open mind staves off tedium. The only alternative is going on holiday. For a radical, to float is also to enjoy a moment of hope. Might there be, somewhere in the dark cloud of current politics, just a glimmer of light?

In their first week or so, most election campaigns hit rock bottom. S...

Crowing about the Trump verdict will only hurt Biden – populists thrive on claims of persecution | Simon Jenkins

The more the political establishment damns the ex-president, the more those outside its reach are drawn to him

“Guilty”, screamed the one-word headline in the New York Times last week, dripping with undisguised glee. Howls of contempt descended on Donald Trump as he slunk from his Manhattan courtroom to cries of “felon”. He now awaits sentence and three more criminal trials, two of them over his response to his 2020 election defeat.

Ecstasy is a dangerous substance in politics. Trump’s enemies sho...

So it’s goodbye to London’s Standard, my old paper – and to the heart of democracy, local news | Simon Jenkins

The sad decline of this nearly 200-year-old institution has culminated with a decision to end the daily print edition

They could as well have felled Big Ben, drained the Serpentine or butchered the ravens in the Tower. No more daily print edition of the Evening Standard. No headlines to greet us at every tube station. No cockney cries of: “Read all aba’it!” No news of what celebrity was where last night and with whom.

The Evening Standard, which has announced plans to shutter its daily newspaper i...